EXTRACT Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter XXI, Of Power

Locke believes only the person is free (the agent) whereas the will is determined (by necessity as he calls it). So the question ‘do we have free will?’ is miss-stated. “I think the question is not proper, whether the will be free, but whether a man be free. (Book II, Chapter XXI, Of Power, s.21)”. His is a two stage model of freedom of the person. First we need to have a choice – two alternatives exist in the mind. Then we need to have both the active power and the absence of any obvious constraint. The will must be caused (as Hume argues as well), but it could be a mental event that causes it (such as a desire or a feeling). The analogy of the locked room is an analogy designed to show that we need these two aspects: both a positive power and a negative absence of any obvious constraint. It’s never enough to be voluntarily there: after all, a heroin addict may be quite happy in his or her addiction, but nonethless is not free. This illustrates Locke’s brand of compatibilism – we must be voluntarily choosing and have the power to do otherwise.

“That a man is not at liberty to will, or not to will, anything in his power…: liberty consisting in a power to act or to forbear acting, and in that only”. (s.24) PB

8.So far as a man has power to think or not to think, to move or not to move, according to the preference or direction of his own mind, so far is a man free. Wherever any performance or forbearance are not equally in a man’s power; wherever doing or not doing will not equally follow upon the preference of his mind directing it, there he is not free, though perhaps the action may be voluntary. So that the idea of liberty is, the idea of a power in any agent to do or forbear any particular action, according to the determination or thought of the mind, whereby either of them is preferred to the other: where either of them is not in the power of the agent to be produced by him according to his volition, there he is not at liberty; that agent is under necessity. So that liberty cannot be where there is no thought, no volition, no will; but there may be thought, there may be will, there may be volition, where there is no liberty. A little consideration of an obvious instance or two may make this clear.

9. A tennis-ball, whether in motion by the stroke of a racket, or lying still at rest, is not by any one taken to be a free agent. If we inquire into the reason, we shall find it is because we conceive not a tennis-ball to think, and consequently not to have any volition, or preference of motion to rest, or vice versa; and therefore has not liberty, is not a free agent; but all its both motion and rest come under our idea of necessary, and are so called. Likewise a man falling into the water, (a bridge breaking under him,) has not herein liberty, is not a free agent. For though he has volition, though he prefers his not falling to falling; yet the forbearance of that motion not being in his power, the stop or cessation of that motion follows not upon his volition; and therefore therein he is not free. So a man striking himself, or his friend, by a convulsive motion of his arm, which it is not in his power, by volition or the direction of his mind, to stop or forbear, nobody thinks he has in this liberty; every one pities him, as acting by necessity and constraint.

10 Again: suppose a man be carried, whilst fast asleep, into a room where is a person he longs to see and speak with; and be there locked fast in, beyond his power to get out: he awakes, and is glad to find himself in so desirable company, which he stays willingly in, i.e. prefers his stay to going away. I ask, is not this stay voluntary? I think nobody will doubt it: and yet, being locked fast in, it is evident he is not at liberty not to stay, he has not freedom to be gone. So that liberty is not an idea belonging to volition, or preferring; but to the person having the power of doing, or forbearing to do, according as the mind shall choose or direct. Our idea of liberty reaches as far as that power, and no farther. For wherever restraint comes to check that power, or compulsion takes away that indifferency of ability to bear acting, there liberty, and our notion of it, presently ceases.

13. Wherever thought is wholly wanting, or the power to act or forbear according to the direction of thought, there necessity takes place. This, in an agent capable of volition, when the beginning or continuation of any action is contrary to that preference of his mind, is called compulsion; when the hindering or stopping any action is contrary to his volition, it is called restraint. Agents that have no thought, no volition at all, are in everything necessary agents.

A QUESTION TO THINK ABOUT: Which of these two kinds of freedom is necessary for moral responsibility? Are people morally responsible when they do something because they want to do it (i.e., when their action is voluntary)? Or are people morally responsible when they could have done otherwise?

locke on free will.pdf

Here is a more detailed explanation of the debate by an American academic

http://www.westga.edu/~rlane/intro/lecture16_fw2.html